


But You, O You!

by shieldmaiden19



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-26 01:24:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14391267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shieldmaiden19/pseuds/shieldmaiden19
Summary: Many children ask if they will ever find a love like that of their parents; Shiro did not. He already knew the answer – knew it in every glance, every brush of fingers, every moment of unguarded abandon he saw in his parents. He knew he would find love, or more likely, that it would find him.





	But You, O You!

**Author's Note:**

> But you, O you,  
> So perfect and so peerless, are created  
> Of every creature's best!
> 
> \-- Ferdinand, The Tempest Act III Scene i

Takashi Shirogane loved his mother. The slim Japanese-American doctor had always had a smile that lingered just for him, often when they were sparring in the dojo and she was on a winning streak at his expense. He loved her green tea and the crinkles at the corners of her eyes and the grey strands in her hair she insisted were all his fault. He loved her laugh in the unguarded hours of the morning and the manic excitement widening her eyes as she consumed a new medical study at night.

Shiro loved his mother almost as much as his father loved her. Growing up, Shiro recalled his quiet, commanding father sitting in his favorite armchair, watching his wife read in a pool of lamplight, his eyes filled with liquid heat and an unbearable softness. Shiro had had to look away. He later recalled only a few instances when he saw his parents touch. But when every shared glance was filled with more meaning and weight than words could describe, one didn’t need touch. 

The Shiroganes loved their son – Shiro never doubted that – but no love they held for him could match the burning star's core of their love for each other. Sure, it was held behind serene faces alight with good humor when around other people, but it was there, and Shiro never forgot it. Many children ask if they will ever find a love like that of their parents; Shiro did not. He already knew the answer – knew it in every glance, every brush of fingers, every moment of unguarded abandon he saw in his parents. He knew he would find love, or more likely, that it would find him. The rock of his parents’ confidence steadied him, and he raced through life, unshakeable in the knowledge he would one day have a love like theirs. 

The Garrison was a crucible for Shiro, a testing ground for his mind, his body, and his heart. Alcohol was plentiful after hours, and though he never sought dates when he was sober, he never lacked for companionship when he was drunk. But he was never under any illusions that the latest drunken hookup, attractive though she might be, was his Love. Shiro just knew, and he ensured they did too. Every ‘morning after’ he had, he made them breakfast and gave them water and every kindness, but no more. There were tears from the more persistent ones, but even they eventually drifted to the periphery. 

Takashi Shirogane graduated the Galaxy Garrison with flying colors and received his pilot’s bars while his parents looked on. His first assignment – a manned journey to Cerberos to retrieve samples from the moon's ice caps – required six months of off-site training with his team, and Shiro spent it to getting to know them. The father-son duo seemed to speak in increasingly complex scientific lingo when they were together, but when they were separated, Shiro found he liked them both immensely. The son Shiro had run into at more than one party (Matt Holt, he was convinced, emptied his glasses with slight-of-hand – otherwise, how could a scrawny smartass half his size match him shot for shot?) and had a talent for making Shiro laugh at Sam Holt’s expense. The engineer for his part had a gentle air about him, a kind of patience for science and discovery and humanity that Shiro could never comprehend. He eased Shiro’s unspoken concerns about leaving the planet for the first time with bracing squeezes of the shoulder and half smiles that promised it would be alright. Shiro trusted them both implicitly. They were his crew, and he was their pilot. Besides, it was just space: it wasn’t as if aliens were real, right?

Aliens were real – very, very real. Shiro forced to the back of his mind every thought and fear that did not have to do with surviving in the here and now. He survived and kept surviving, his days a blur of combat and purple light and pain. Always pain. Somehow amidst the wreckage of his mind, when the opportunity to escape came, Shiro found the strength to follow his rescuer and flee the Galra. His every thought in the desperate race home was to warn Earth, to save his parents. If their light went out when he could do something prevent it, his will to survive, to fight the darkness within would crumble. He had to warn his home. 

The Garrison’s quarantine would have made sense to his rational mind, but Shiro was afraid. His captors, his abusers, his enemies, were on the hunt for him, and there wasn’t time. His pleas for them to listen went unheard, and the haze of panic blurred his senses until all he knew was darkness. 

When he came to, bone tired but in his right mind, Shiro covered his face and allowed himself a moment to consider the future. It appeared bleak – horrifyingly, depressingly so – but even in his exhaustion, hopeful paths appeared before him. Some Garrison students had saved him the night before with Keith’s help…Keith. The slight kid with too much anger and no channel to control it whom Shiro had taken under his wing at the Garrison had grown and filled out a little in Shiro’s absence. He had not given up on the Cerberos crew, even in the face of expulsion and the having to once again fend for himself. 

Somehow, the group’s pooled resources – devices rewired, intuition, and a boatload of courage – brought them to the Blue Lion. Voltron could make a difference against Zarkon – Shiro alone knew the power such a legend could have in turning the tide, though he knew neither how nor why – so Shiro had cast the die and followed Lance’s intuition. Now the foreign castle soared in graceful arcs and spires above them, and Shiro could feel the age of the place sinking into his bones. Hall after hall, locked room after locked room, the place seemed to stretch beyond the moment into both the present and the future. 

What seemed to be the central control room of the castle, with a raised dais in the middle and a deep alcove in the back, lit itself as the five stepped through the doorway. A pneumatic hiss and the whirr of disused machinery had them all alert, in various ready stances for the expected fight. Instead, two glass-seeming coffins rose from the floor of the alcove. The white-haired young woman in the first took a step forward with a cry for her father and would have hit the floor had Lance not been quick to catch her.

As the blue-eyed boy made a fool of himself (Shiro did not begrudge the teen his attempts at charm: he himself had been far worse), most of Shiro’s mind sputtered as it tried to process the star that had exploded in his chest and solar flares that were roiling through his veins. 

The sun and the stars and the moon together could not have formed so bright a light as the radiance spilling from her, a light so bright he hurt to look at her and ached when he looked away. Was this what his father saw when he looked at his mother? Did his mother have this same tempest roaring in her veins when she thought on his father?

Even though his thoughts raced wildly, Shiro did his best to project steady leadership, hoping a moment to breathe would help everyone find a bit of calmness in the chaos. He was right. Allura and Coran left the room for some privacy for their grief, and Shiro was left with his crew. Two were still running on the adrenaline of the journey to this moment: Keith’s hands couldn’t stop twitching, from the sheath at his hip to the cuffs on his jacket and back, and Katie’s – no, Pidge’s fingers danced across the control screen Allura had activated, muttering equations and coordinates under their breath as their brain dissected the technology for its workings. The other two looked dead on their feet. The shock of all that had happened seemed to have knocked the wind from them, and they sat, limbs lax with exhaustion. Lance’s hair stuck up in all directions, as though he had been running his fingers through it or had even been tugging at it in frustration. Hunk had his back to one of the pods, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. When the princess returned, they would all need to be led back to the present moment, but for now, they could rest.

Shiro stretched out on the floor, aware of the dangers of his own fatigue and somehow knowing he had perfected the art of the power nap when in captivity, and allowed himself to drift off. His last thought before gentle oblivion was of the princess – her eyes, her resolve, her pride in herself and her heritage – and a phrase he’d heard his father murmur as they watched his mother come down the stairs in a pale green summer dress, her hair done up and her eyes sparkling with mischief:

Most sure, the goddess on whom these airs attend!

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first full Voltron fic, and I'm really excited/nervous to share it! I owe a lot of this fic to smolsarcasticraspberry on Tumblr for her passionate defense of Shallura: she converted me to this glorious pairing and consistently blows me away with her analyses of the two and the classical roles they fill. This fic is my answer to her as well as an answer to my desperate need for more quality Shallura fics (I don't know if this particular fic is quality, but it's the kind I'd like to read). The Tempest seemed the perfect fit for them, and I'll be writing a partner fic from Allura's perspective soon. Let me know what you think, and thank you for reading!!


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